DigiCert has acquired the CyberTrust Enterprise SSL business from Verizon Enterprise Solutions, making it the second-largest Certificate Authority for high-assurance SSL certificates, according to an announcement on Tuesday. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Chinese company Lenovo reported its website was hacked on Wednesday. This comes after the US Department of Homeland Security issued an alert on Friday stating that Superfish software installed on Lenovo computers leaves systems vulnerable to SSL spoofing cyberattacks which allow criminals to redirect traffic from official websites and read…

Mobile app developers have knowingly left consumers vulnerable to attacks for months by delaying security patches to address known SSL vulnerabilities, according to McAfee Labs Threats Report for February.

Google improved adherence rates for SSL warnings by 30 percent with redesigned warnings in Chrome 37. Users heeded only 37 percent of SSL warnings in the last month of Chrome 36, and have persistently low comprehension of SSL, according to research paper recently published by Google.

Web hosting provider Nexcess announced on Wednesday that it has added SSL encryption to its content distribution network (CDN), giving users the ability to delivery SSL-protected content with minimal latency.

Web hosting provider Nexcess announced on Wednesday that it has added SSL encryption to its content distribution network (CDN), giving users the ability to delivery SSL-protected content with minimal latency.

Joost de Valk, founder and CEO of SEO giant Yoast, presented a session for HostingCon Europe earlier this month in Amsterdam. He said he was surprised that when Google announced on August 6 it would use SSL for site ranking he didn’t receive a bunch of emails from service providers suggesting sites make the switch from unsecured to secured.

De Valk believes this change in the way Google ranks is great opportunity for hosting companies. Not only can they increase revenue through the sale of SSL certificates and related services but also they can generate business by guiding the customer through the process of converting from a non-secure site to a secure one, and automating it as much as possible.

“I think there’s a huge chance here for hosting providers to show that they’re aware of what’s happening in the wider internet world and how important good hosting is for your Google ranking. With speed already being an important ranking factor and SSL now having been introduced as a new one, there’s a lot of chance for hosting providers to distinguish themselves by being on the ball,” de Valk told the WHIR in an interview.

“If you explained all this…we can only do this if we sell you the certificate because otherwise setting all of this up is very hard for us to do, it actually becomes an easier upsell to also sell the certificate. There is good money in that,” deValk said in his presentation.

Mark Stathatos, director of business development at SSLGURU, explains the concept behind using SPDY technology to decrease site load time. “SPDY is a module developed by Google and basically it speeds up the TLS connections by multiplexing multiple requests through one connection. Unfortunately the tool is not compatible with all server types.” SPDY achieves speed by compression, multiplexing and prioritization.

According to W3Techs, only 2.3 percent of sites currently use SPDY. This offers service providers a great opportunity to better serve customers by making sites faster. Currently, mostly high traffic sites such as Facebook, Google and Twitter use this technique.

According to de Valk, slower loading sites are at a disadvantage when it comes to ranking. This is especially true for sites that give frequent updates such as news outlets or user generated content.

The other technology service providers can use to speed up sites is OSCP stapling. “OCSP stapling stands for online certificate status protocol and it’s basically used to check if a certificate has been revoked,” said Stathatos. “Normally the browser does this but with OCSP stapling the server is able to send it’s certificate and OCSP results with the initial certificate request. Basically, this makes it so the browser doesn’t have to download or cross reference with the certificate authority, it just saves a little bit of time.” This saves time by allowing the browser to skip an extra connection thus speeding up the site load speed for the end user.

As demonstrated with the Google Penguin and Panda search engine ranking updates, Google continues to get smarter about how it ranks sites and also does things that benefit it’s own business from the ad side. What remains of SEO “tricks” is only about 10 percent technical, according to de Valk, however every tool is still an opportunity to improve rankings.

Beyond the tricks, Google is creating a situation where quality content is king. The strategy has shifted back much more towards making the end user happy with “real” content rather than overusing a keyword in an effort to get rankings. Coaching hosting customers on this idea is yet another opportunity for services providers to distinguish themselves and offer value.

Regarding the latest Penguin update that was just released last week, “Sites that are on top of their game likely won’t see a significant impact from these rollouts,” according to Inc. “This is especially true of sites that focus on high-quality content and resist the urge to indulge in long-abandoned activities like keyword stuffing.”

Joost de Valk, founder and CEO of SEO giant Yoast, presented a session for HostingCon Europe earlier this month in Amsterdam. He said he was surprised that when Google announced on August 6 it would use SSL for site ranking he didn’t receive a bunch of emails from service providers suggesting sites make the switch from unsecured to secured.

De Valk believes this change in the way Google ranks is great opportunity for hosting companies. Not only can they increase revenue through the sale of SSL certificates and related services but also they can generate business by guiding the customer through the process of converting from a non-secure site to a secure one, and automating it as much as possible.

“I think there’s a huge chance here for hosting providers to show that they’re aware of what’s happening in the wider internet world and how important good hosting is for your Google ranking. With speed already being an important ranking factor and SSL now having been introduced as a new one, there’s a lot of chance for hosting providers to distinguish themselves by being on the ball,” de Valk told the WHIR in an interview.

“If you explained all this…we can only do this if we sell you the certificate because otherwise setting all of this up is very hard for us to do, it actually becomes an easier upsell to also sell the certificate. There is good money in that,” deValk said in his presentation.

Mark Stathatos, director of business development at SSLGURU, explains the concept behind using SPDY technology to decrease site load time. “SPDY is a module developed by Google and basically it speeds up the TLS connections by multiplexing multiple requests through one connection. Unfortunately the tool is not compatible with all server types.” SPDY achieves speed by compression, multiplexing and prioritization.

According to W3Techs, only 2.3 percent of sites currently use SPDY. This offers service providers a great opportunity to better serve customers by making sites faster. Currently, mostly high traffic sites such as Facebook, Google and Twitter use this technique.

According to de Valk, slower loading sites are at a disadvantage when it comes to ranking. This is especially true for sites that give frequent updates such as news outlets or user generated content.

The other technology service providers can use to speed up sites is OSCP stapling. “OCSP stapling stands for online certificate status protocol and it’s basically used to check if a certificate has been revoked,” said Stathatos. “Normally the browser does this but with OCSP stapling the server is able to send it’s certificate and OCSP results with the initial certificate request. Basically, this makes it so the browser doesn’t have to download or cross reference with the certificate authority, it just saves a little bit of time.” This saves time by allowing the browser to skip an extra connection thus speeding up the site load speed for the end user.

As demonstrated with the Google Penguin and Panda search engine ranking updates, Google continues to get smarter about how it ranks sites and also does things that benefit it’s own business from the ad side. What remains of SEO “tricks” is only about 10 percent technical, according to de Valk, however every tool is still an opportunity to improve rankings.

Beyond the tricks, Google is creating a situation where quality content is king. The strategy has shifted back much more towards making the end user happy with “real” content rather than overusing a keyword in an effort to get rankings. Coaching hosting customers on this idea is yet another opportunity for services providers to distinguish themselves and offer value.

Regarding the latest Penguin update that was just released last week, “Sites that are on top of their game likely won’t see a significant impact from these rollouts,” according to Inc. “This is especially true of sites that focus on high-quality content and resist the urge to indulge in long-abandoned activities like keyword stuffing.”

Joost de Valk, founder and CEO of SEO giant Yoast, presented a session for HostingCon Europe earlier this month in Amsterdam. He said he was surprised that when Google announced on August 6 it would use SSL for site ranking he didn’t receive a bunch of emails from service providers…